• Family : CLUSIACEAE
  (Garcinia Or Kokam Family)
• Family (Hindi name) : KOKAM FAMILY (कोकम फैमिली)
• Family (as per The APG System III) : CLUSIACEAE
• Basionym : Mangostana cambogia Gaertn.; Cambogia gemmi-gutta L.
• Synonym(s) : Garcinia cambogia (Gaertn.) Desr.
• Species Name (as per The Plant List) : Garcinia gummi-gutta (L.) Roxb.
• Common name : Malabar Gamboge
• Vernacular name : Vrukshamlah (Sanskrit); Bilatti-amli (Hindi); Kodakkapuli (Tamil)Punarpuli, Upaagi mara (Kannada); Korakkapuli, Kodampuli, Kudapuli, Kokakkappuli, Marapuli, Meenpuli, Perumpuli, Pinumpuli, Pinar (Malayalam)
• Habit : Tree
• Habitat : Along streams in evergreen and semi-Evergreen forests up to 1250m
• Comments / notes : The fruits are edible, sometimes used as a condiment for flavouring curries in place of tamarind.
• Key identification features : A medium-sized evergreen tree. Leaves are simple, elliptic-oblong, up to 12 cm long, 5cm broad. Flowers are unisexual, staminate flowers 15-20-fascicled on new and old branches, tetramerous, stamens in globular mass, slightly raised above the receptacle. Ovary 6-12 locular, grooved, fruit a berry, elliptic- oblong to 5 cm in diameter with 6-8 grooves.
• Flower, Fruit : January-August
• Collection Nos : CJS 11600, CJS 11828, CJS 13177
• Distribution :
  • Goa : North Goa district, South Goa district
  • Karnataka : Chikkamagaluru district, Dakshina Kannada district, Hassan district, Shivamogga district, Udupi district, Kodagu (Coorg) district, Uttara Kannada district
  • Kerala : All districts of Kerala
  • Maharashtra : Mumbai Suburban district, Konkan
  • Tamil Nadu : Guthirayan Hills (Dharmapuri district), Coimbatore district, Dharmapuri district, The Nilgiri district, Tirunelveli district, Kanyakumari district
• Native : India
• World Distribution : India, Sri Lanka
• Conservation Status : Least Concern (LC)
• Literature : Cecil J. Saldanha, S. R. Ramesh (1984). Flora of Karnatka State vol. 1. Oxford and IBH Publishing Co, New Delhi; Balakrishna Gowda & A.N. Sringesh 2004 – Sringeri (checklist unpublished); Keshava Murthy & Yoganarasimhan, 1990 – Flora of Coorg district; Gopalakrishna Bhat, 2003 – Flora of Udupi district; Matthew, K.M., Flora of Tamil Nadu Carnatic, Vol.3 (1). Diocesan Press, Madras. 1983; Henry, Kumari & Chithra (1983). Flora of Tamil Nadu, India vol. 1; Sasidharan, N. 2011. Flowering plants of Kerala. DVD, V 2, KFRI; Navendu Page (2017). Endemic woody plants of the Western Ghats; N.P. Sing & S. Karthikeyan 2000. Flora of Maharastra vol 1. Botanical survey of India, Govt. India.
• Citation : Sankara Rao, K., Raja K Swamy, Deepak Kumar, Arun Singh R. and K. Gopalakrishna Bhat (2019). Flora of Peninsular India. http://peninsula.ces.iisc.ac.in/plants.php?name=Garcinia gummi-gutta. Downloaded on 3 April 2025.

Botanical Description

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